A man who murdered his ex-girlfriend and then secretly dumped her body has been jailed for life in rare televised court proceedings on Wednesday.

David Gilroy, 49, was sentenced to a minimum term of 18 years for killing Suzanne Pilley, a book-keeper, in May 2010 after she ended their illicit affair.

The brief hearing at the high court in Edinburgh was filmed by television cameras, after an unusual concession by the judge, Lord Bracadale, and for the first time in British legal history the footage was cleared for broadcast immediately.

Gilroy, who is married with children, had denied murdering Pilley, 38, a colleague at Infrastructure Managers Limited in central Edinburgh, after she ended their often fraught relationship and began seeing another man.

Her body has not yet been found, but is believed to have been buried or dumped in the heavily forested mountains of Argyll near Loch Lomond. Lothian and Borders police have promised to keep the case open until her body is found.

There were angry scenes in court as Gilroy was led away: there were shouts of "rot" and "die" from the public benches and demands that Gilroy "tell us where she is".

In a statement released after his sentencing, Pilley's family said: "We are relieved that the legal process has concluded, and it gives us comfort to know justice has been done for Suzanne.

"As a family we will continue to try to move on, but we will never be able to rest completely until we know where our daughter is."

Despite a lack of forensic evidence, Gilroy was convicted last month after the police and prosecutors compiled a detailed circumstantial case based on extensive CCTV images and a painstaking reconstruction of both his and Pilley's movements.

In a rare development, trial judge Lord Bracadale allowed television cameras to film his sentencing of Gilroy on Wednesday morning, although the cameras were only allowed to focus on the judge and not to show Gilroy or any other parts of the court.

While banned in English courts, Scottish judges have allowed cameras in court several times in the past 20 years, but only for documentaries, with footage heavily vetted. In 1996 Lord Ross allowed cameras to watch him sentencing two armed robbers.

This is the first time in a UK court that a sentencing has been filmed for broadcast the same day.

Bracadale told Gilroy he had shown "quite chilling calmness" when he disposed of his ex-lover's body after "you lost your temper and murdered her in a sustained attack".

The judge continued: "It seems that you are the only person who knows where her body is. I hope that the day will come in your life when you feel able to disclose that information and that may bring some comfort to her bereft family, particularly her mother and father who, after giving evidence, sat in quiet dignity throughout the rest of the trial."

Gilroy was convicted after being described in court as a "deceitful and controlling" man, capable of bursts of violence and great jealousy. Charges of violence towards his wife and children were dropped during the trial after his wife refused to give evidence.

He had bombarded Pilley with more than 400 texts and phone messages in the last days before she disappeared, and stopped the day she vanished. He covered up scratches and cuts on his hands using makeup before a police interview.

After scouring thousands of hours of CCTV footage and road camera images from 250 locations, the police were able to establish that Gilroy had spent five hours driving in remote roads in Argyll the day after Pilley vanished, with no clear reason.

After killing Pilley, Gilroy is thought to have kept her body in the boot of his car overnight while he attended a family dinner and a school concert.